(a/n – we will be skipping through now as I want to focus on key events rather than just them entering various shows. However, I now have an entire playlist dedicated to this fic which I am listening to in order to try and channel the emotion into it. This is how I procrastinate.)

Chapter 13

Barry placed his dance shoes carefully in their box and kissed the shoulder of Yvonne, who was unfastening her own shoes.

"You did excellently. And third place isn't all that bad, we still have other competitions to do," he smiled at her comfortingly. They had come third and second in a string of dance competitions, but never first. There was always someone better, someone more experienced, someone taking their ballroom champions dream away. His wife nodded, and a piece of her hair came loose from the elegant hairstyle which she wore it in. Barry instantly tucked it behind her ear, brushing his fingertips down her soft and warm cheek as he did so, delighting in how she blushed slightly under his touch. He offered her his arm and she took it gratefully, as they exited the building and strolled towards their residence. They were living in a rented flat near the train station, which was more than adequate for the two of them, and provided an excellent link to various competition locations along the rail network. All in all, Barry thought, they had done pretty well for themselves. It was only 1939, and the two of them were still in their early twenties, which was good for dancers. They would reach their goal someday soon.

Barry carefully placed Yvonne back down on the floor. They had been practicing their dancing to the classical compositions being played through the wireless radio which they had bought. It was easy for them to dance as the melodies swarmed around their flat like butterflies on a summer day through the countryside fields. They were very content, practicing their lifts and stretches and twirls as the tunes played out. Then, whilst the radio announcements were broadcast, the two would get a glass of water or reflect on their performance and which aspects of their routines they needed to practice for shows and competitions. They were still regulars in shows at the local theatre, and after they had begun to win some medals, Barry had managed to persuade the local priest to allow them to run ballroom demonstrations from his parish hall, which provided them with more income and practice time. As he handed her a drink at around 11:15 in the morning on September 3rd, the radio broadcast of the Prime Minister was heard.

"This morning the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note, stating that…" Barry looked over at Yvonne as Neville Chamberlain continued to talk. There had been talk of this happening, and speculations in the newspapers about the German regime under Adolf Hitler, but surely, Barry thought, it wasn't actually happening? The whole world crumbling into disarray? Yvonne's face matched his feelings as the broadcast continued. "- and against them I am certain that the right will prevail." Yes, Barry realised, Great Britain was at war with Germany. He took Yvonne in his arms and the two of them sat completely still for a good while as the reality of what was to come hit them.

He looked at the letter in his hand and back up at Yvonne. Conscription papers for the Navy. Barry would be off into battle for his country. Yvonne looked up at him from her Auxiliary uniform which had arrived. The two of them were the prime age for dancers, but also therefore the prime age for service. And so it was to be that the two would be separated: Barry to the seas as a stoker, and Yvonne to Southampton as a nurse. He pulled her into his arms and kissed her for what would be the final time in a long while.

The Navy was not something Barry enjoyed. Dirty, noisy and incredibly masculine. Even as Bert, Barry had been a dainty person and so shoveling coal and shouting at his fellow sailors was not a pursuit which he enjoyed. There was little sense of time in the dark, overpowering ships. All he did was write to the hospital where Yvonne worked whenever he got the chance, which was not as often as he would have liked. Dancing was not an option, and he missed holding her close to him terribly, as he spent long hours doing his service. Some of the other men on the ships noticed his more delicate persona, and he had to admit to himself that he felt drawn to some of the figures of the men in ways which he had not felt for a long time. When the men bent to move some bags, or changed their clothes into alternative ones, Barry couldn't help but look at them as a way of making the time pass a little more easily. He was propositioned by an older colleague with a strong build one night as Barry tried to sleep. The other man placed his hands around Barry roughly, causing him to whimper and his body to react in ways the man knew it would. Barry's head kicked in after his body, and Barry sat upwards, pushing the other male off him, much to the other man's frustration. Barry whispered towards him

"I'm married!" The other man put his finger over Barry's lips.

"Things are different in the Navy, though tell nobody." His voice was gravelly, desperate and masculine. All of a sudden Barry found himself being kissed violently. Barry didn't reciprocate the gesture, his loyalty to Yvonne and their joint dream of being ballroom champions winning out over his desire for the man. Naval life continued much the same after the encounter, and Barry told nobody, for fear he too would be ridiculed for the event if anybody discovered what had happened.

Yvonne couldn't say she was displeased at coming third in the ballroom competition. She just desperately wanted to come first with Barry. As a married pair they were putting in all of the work possible for them to propel to the top of the judges' criteria, but each time there always seemed to be another pair who were just that bit better. And Yvonne knew that she and Barry were up there as some of the most dedicated artists to their dance. She just wished that one year they would be crowned national ballroom champions in the prestigious competitions. One day, she was confident, they would become ballroom champions.

When they got their wireless radio, Yvonne felt that their flat was perfect. She was able to dance with her attentive and caring husband to the range of songs on offer, alongside earning an income from doing what she loved with the man she loved. The announcement from Chamberlain hit Yvonne hard.

"… unless we heard from them by 11 o'clock that they were prepared to withdrawn their troops from Poland," Yvonne's head was filled with images of those suffering, and being unable to do anything about it, "… but ordered his troops to cross the Polish frontier…" Yvonne's head was filled with images that her father had conjured into her head as a little girl, of soldiers bravely marching in unison for the right thing. "…You may be taking your part in fighting services or as a volunteer in one of the branches of Civil Defence…" Yvonne couldn't see a way out of the inevitable future. The Prime Minister himself was addressing them, telling them that they would all be used for their country, like her father had been all those years ago. And yet, Yvonne remembered how her father had been when discussing the army. Violent, crude, obnoxious. As a girl, she had not known how horrid a man her father had been, but now she realised. She didn't want Barry, her darling, sweet Barry, to be turned into the monster her father had been. And yet she knew that they would become separated in order for the Great Britain to overturn the dictatorship in Germany. Yvonne's dreams of being a ballroom champion with Barry shattered into a thousand pieces before her eyes as Barry held her tight in his arms on the sofa of their flat.

He was conscripted into the Navy, she into the Auxiliary services. Southampton and the seas. She missed him more than she cared to admit. She craved his touch, his voice, his presence. As she tended the wounded in the military hospital which she was stationed in, Yvonne Stuart-Hargreaves found herself looking at the wounded and praying that Barry would not have any life-threatening injuries as a result of the war. He wrote to her and she treasured all of his letters, infrequent though they were. She had no way of writing to him, so she prayed that he knew that he was in her heart in every moment. There were a great many soldiers that came to her hospital who never made it out alive, and Yvonne felt herself slowly becoming used to the aroma of death, something which her delicate stomach was not fond of. She disliked the sight of blood, and was frequently found retching after treating a patient. Yvonne tried as hard as possible to get jobs serving the teas or cleaning as opposed to dressing wounds. She dreamed of dancing with Barry once again.

Barry didn't write for a long period of time and Yvonne found herself craving company. She headed out into the local public house on her Saturday off with a few fellow nurses. As she was sat at the bar feeling sorry for herself, a tall figure appeared behind her. She turned and was confronted with a dashing man who had a face that Yvonne felt she recognised from somewhere but she wasn't quite sure if she was just imagining things. He bought her a drink and she took it, quickly striking up a conversation with the gentleman. He bought her another drink as they chatted about the war. Eventually, he introduced himself.

"Julian Dalrymple-Sykes. It is a pleasure, Yvonne." He picked up her hand and kissed it. Yvonne felt her insides alter just slightly and she finished the next drink which he presented her with. She giggled.

"Julian is a lovely and distinguished name," she realised her voice was higher than usual, but she continued talking about dancing and he mentioned how he was a farmer and so was exempt from conscription. The piano in the public house sent a swirling song around the establishment as a man sat and played melodies across its keys. Julian lifted her off her chair and began to twirl her around the tables. Yvonne realised that her companions had left. It was late. The lights were bright. Julian was strong. He bought her another drink.

Yvonne woke up in a strange smelling room with a pounding headache and a violent urge to be sick. She clambered out of the bed and the cold morning air hit her like a million antiseptic needles, stabbing every pore of her body. She gasped, as the realisation that she was completely naked hit her. She vomited all over the floor and grabbed her clothes from where they were scattered across the room. Yvonne pulled them on in the most undignified way imaginable, whilst simultaneously trying to piece together what had happened to get her in the situation she was in. Turning back to the bed she saw a vaguely familiar face smiling in a way that Yvonne did not find comforting as his eyes raked over her form. She felt very little and very vulnerable again, as if she was a teenager once more. He patted the space on the bed next to him and spoke.

"I trust last night was to your satisfaction, tiny dancer?" He smiled again, and she nodded. His voice was so very, very soothing. And he enunciated every word so beautifully. And, if she remembered correctly from the evening before as memories hit her, he was a dancer. Yvonne knew that she had to leave in order to get ready for her shift at the hospital. She stammered her excuses and left the building, running through the streets until she was finally back in her lodgings, where a letter awaited her. A letter from her husband, judging by the handwriting. Clutching it to her chest, Yvonne slid to the floor and cried silent tears to herself as she punished herself for letting go of her dignity and allowing her body to take over her head and her heart. Her heart which was loyal to Barry, her husband, who, she decided, would never know of what she had done. Once was too many times to take her back from the arms of another, and he had already done that after the incident with the Hungarian. Thinking of that brought back more memories of Nottingham and the tree which she didn't want to think of. Yvonne was early to her shift on Monday morning, but she worked furiously hard at anything that was thrown at her in order to erase the pain of the weekend. Maybe if she could ease the physical pain of the soldiers, she would erase some of her emotional pain.